1/4 Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)
BREF-GUIDE
8 June 2009
Best Available Techniques (BAT) and utilization of BAT Reference Documents (BREF's)
1 Introduction
The European Commission's Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive (2008/01/EC) states that activities which have the potential to cause significant harm to the environment need an environmental permit. The IPPC system applies an integrated approach, which means that all the environmental impacts of industrial activities must be examined in a fully integrated way. Discharges and emissions released into the air, water or the soil must all be assessed simultaneously, together with other factors such as resource consumption, waste minimization, energy efficiency, noise and vibration, and accident prevention. The main targets of the IPPC-directive are as follows: To achieve integrated prevention and control of pollution leading to a high level of protection of the environment as a whole To harmonise integrated environmental permit system in Member States To organise exchange of information about best available techniques BAT (activities listed in the Annex 1 of the directive) between industry and the Member States BAT Reference Documents, BREFs
2 Best Available Techniques (BAT)
BAT under IPPC directive's article 2(11) – definition: best available most effective in achieving a high general level of protection of the environment as a whole developed on a scale which allows implementation in the relevant industrial sector, under economically and technically viable conditions, considering the costs and advantages both the technology used and the way in which the installation is designed, built, maintained, operated and decommissioned
techniques
Simplified it can be said that BAT means the most effective and advanced techniques that can be practically adopted within the industry to prevent harmful emissions and other environmental impacts, or reduce them to acceptable limits.
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3 Information Exchange
The BATs needs to be determined. For this purpose, the European Commission organize an information exchange between Member States and the industries concerned on best available techniques, associated monitoring and developments in them. Hereupon, the information exchange was set up as illustrated in Figure 1.
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Information Exchange Forum (IEF) Chair: EC Secretariat: EC
Members: EU Member States, Industry Observers: environm. NGOs, non-EU states Management, planning, co-ordination, control Progress reports, draft BREFs
Advice
IPPC Expert Group (IEG) Chair: EC Secretariat: EC
33 Technical Working Groups (TWGs)
Chair: EC/EIPPCB
Secretariat: EIPPCB
Members: experts from Member States, industries, environmental NGOs, universities and research centres/institutes, technique providers (e.g. equipment suppliers) and consultants/consultancy firms
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Figure 1: Organisation of the information exchange according to Article 17(2) of the IPPC Directive
The objectives of the whole information exchange are: • to accomplish a comprehensive exchange of information and views • to promote the worldwide dissemination of achievable consumption and emission values and performances associated with the use of BAT and • to guide the competent authorities set BAT-based permit conditions at site level Against the background of these objectives, the BREFs play an important role.
4 Identification of an activity and use of BREF
BREFs are important guidance documents for both licensing authorities and industry. BREFs do not prescribe techniques nor emission limit values. BREFs are reference information to which one can benchmark its own data from an existing installation or technical plans for a new installation. In order to adopt or compare the information from BREFs to operators own activity, the following aspects need to be taken account on: identification of systems – procedures, maintenance, monitoring etc. identification of current emissions -> all the relevant releases administrative aspects - comparability of the data, reporting requirements and notifications
3/4 It should be noticed that there might be many different BREFs to be used assessing BAT for one industrial plant. For example of the 33 BREF documents produced to date, up to 15 may be relevant to the pulp and paper industry in one way or another.
5 General structure and contents of BREFs
BREFs describe the techniques which can be defined as BAT, as well as consumption and emission data when using those techniques. The BREFs have been prepared for industrial sectors listed in Annex I of the IPPC Directive. The main industry sectors by IPPC are the following: energy industry metals production and processing minerals industry chemical industry waste management other activities (e.g. the pulp and paper industry)
Agreed standard chapter structure of BREFs is as follows: Executive summary The main findings from all chapters of the document will be presented, without background information but with references to details within the body of the BREF, in such a way that the summary can be read and understood as a “stand-alone” document. Preface This standard section will describe the structure of the document, the legislative context, the way in which the document was generated (e.g. how information was collected and assessed) and how it can be used. Scope Definition of the industrial activities and sectors covered by the specific BREF. General information This brief introductory chapter will provide general information about the industry addressed by the BREF in terms of numbers of installations, size, geographical distribution, production capacity and economics. It will describe the structure and nature of the sector and will give an indication of the key environmental issues for the sector with some sector-relevant emission and consumption data as background information for the process of determining BAT and as useful information for a regulator writing a permit. Applied processes and techniques This chapter will briefly describe the production processes and techniques currently applied in the industrial sector covered by the BREF. There will be descriptions of process variants, developing trends and alternative processes.
4/4 Current emission and consumption levels This chapter will report on the range of currently observed emission and consumption levels for the overall process and its sub-processes. Information will include currently observed usage of energy, water and raw materials as well as an indication of issues such as noise or odour. Techniques to consider in the determination of best available techniques This chapter will provide a catalogue of emission reduction or other environmentally beneficial techniques that are considered to be most relevant in the determination of BAT (both generally and in specific cases). This pool of possible techniques will include both process integrated and “end-of-pipe” techniques, thus covering pollution prevention and pollution control measures. Good operating practices will be addressed and consideration given to inspection routines, maintenance systems, process control methods and contingency provisions. Best available techniques This chapter, with standard explanatory introduction, will conclude on what is considered to be BAT in a general sense for the sector based upon the information in the previous chapter. Here the overarching criteria of costs of techniques and their environmental performance, including cross-media implications, are considered in relation to the industry sector. This chapter will not set emission limit values but will suggest emission and/or consumption levels that are associated with the use of BAT and it will explain the basis for the conclusions. Emerging techniques This chapter will identify any novel pollution prevention and control techniques that are reported to be under development and may provide future cost or environmental benefits. Information will include the potential efficiency of the technique, a preliminary cost estimate, and an indication of the time scale before the techniques might be commercially “available“. Concluding remarks In particular, this section will conclude on the information exchange exercise for the sector. To indicate how contemporary the document is, the start date and duration of the information exchange exercise will be given. Annexes (dependent upon relevance to sector and availability of information) 1. Glossary – to define abbreviations and terms used in the document; 2. Supporting Literature and/or Case studies; 3. Summaries of existing legislation - primarily Community legislation which is considered to be particularly relevant in arriving at BAT conclusions; 4. Monitoring of emissions (specific to sector). References
All BREFs should follow the general principles of the above structure, but the order of chapters given here is illustrative and BREFs may be structured differently in detail. Documents dealing with horizontal issues may depart substantially from this outline and some chapters may not be relevant at all. In complex sectors, where applicable, the structure will aim to follow the mass flow of input materials which helps to locate the desired information.